Pioneering techpreneur creates 'angel fund'

MYLA VILLANUEVA may not have invented the thinnest computer, the smallest smartphone, or a faster way to transmit data over the Internet, but among her peers she is considered every inch tech royalty.

After having successfully sold the idea of networking computers via an Internet protocol in the late ’80s, a time when most companies still relied on clunky mainframe computers for data storage, she is now on her fifth startup and focused on mass-marketing technology. (She calls herself a “serial entrepreneur.”)

As co-founder and managing director of Novare Technologies, she is developing products, software and architecture for local and foreign mobile operators in the field of “Fixed-Mobile-Internet convergence.”

Basically these are mobile applications and solutions for clients which include Globe Telecom, GSM Association, Meralco, PLDT, Philippine Savings Bank, RCBC, Smart, Standard Chartered Bank, Sun Cellular, and Norway’s Telenor, to name a few. Among Novare’s partners are IBM, Oracle, Research in Motion, Sybase, Tata Consultancy, etc.

She is now setting her sights on expanding Novare’s footprint in Southeast Asia and China.

“Our next goal as a group of companies is to hit China and other southeast Asian countries, which is made possible through partnerships with telcos and Internet companies localized and establishing there.... I feel this is a wave bigger than that of the last two decades of the Internet’s exponential influence and growth.”

Ever on the forefront of tech breakthroughs, Villanueva has launched what could be described as her best innovation to date.

Last January 11, she announced her personal advocacy called “Wireless Wings”, a P111-million angel fund which aims to support deserving information technology ideas from colleges and universities nationwide.

“I am trying to ignite a culture that I think is very ‘thin’ right now. I want to encourage people to innovate. I want them not to be just builders. I want them to build their own companies, craft their own models and be successful.”

Aside from funding ideas, Villanueva says her team will also provide beneficiaries with mentoring sessions from seasoned IT executives, as well as link them up with multinational companies and major players in the IT industry.

This way, “we will be able to expose them to the corporate setting, and to the type of thinking that businessmen have, because it has always been my dream to find emerging innovations that we can send outside the country.”

She adds: “We want them to think forward and realize that their ideas and products could also be used in Asia, in Indonesia and China.”

Villanueva also invites “other companies who have the same advocacy” to contribute to the angel fund to be able to boost the chances of these new techpreneurs in the international market.

It’s easy to understand why she has chosen this particular advocacy, having once grappled with the challenges of breaking into new markets dominated by the big boys of technology.

Flushed with idealism and inspired by the tech boom in Silicon Valley where she had studied and was living (and no less inspired by Apple’s Steve Jobs’s success), Villanueva, then just 21, came home to the Philippines in 1988, set up MDI Group Holdings, and introduced the idea of networking computers via Internet protocol.

Back then, most government agencies and the top Philippine firms shared and stored data using those clunky mainframe computers.

“It is so old tech today, but I cannot understate the challenges that came along, starting a new company to sell this concept, and competing against the IBMs and Digital Equipments of the world, in a male-dominated industry which was then very conservative and comfortable with the status quo,” Villanueva now recalls. But she pressed on, knowing that computer networking would soon be the norm.

Her very first deal was with the Social Security System which saw the value in decentralizing its members’ contributions system. This was soon followed by projects with Meralco, ABS-CBN Corp., PLDT and other private firms.

More pioneering efforts in the local tech sector followed.

With her husband Jun, she introduced consumer electronics equipment, gadgets and design software to a mass market via Microwarehouse (1995); created Wolfpac (2000), a mobile applications and content provider which was subsequently sold to Smart Communications; then set up Meridian Telekoms (2003), the first wireless broadband firm in the country (later sold for $50 million to Smart and now rebranded as SmartBro). All these breakthroughs earned her the first Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award (2003) under Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year program.

At the GSM Association, where she is a member of the executive management committee, Villanueva had pushed for the globalization of Mobile Money Transfers. It now benefits millions of migrant workers, especially Filipinos, who easily send money home to their families just using their cell phones.

Looking back on her very first networking project, and her subsequent achievements, Villanueva says the key to her success is that she has “never been afraid of hiring people who are much better than me.” Also, she is able to spot the major trends in her field because she has a voracious reading appetite and a constant curiosity about everything around her.

When she isn’t thinking up more ways to break ground in yet another tech field or indulge in her advocacies, Villanueva, now 45, loves chilling with her husband and their two kids: Blanca, 17, and Luis, 10. Usually they are out sailing and discovering the Philippines via their catamaran, the TutuTango. “We also love to travel the world anytime we can. I guess we are a family of gypsies.”

(My column, Something Like Life, is published every Friday at the Life section of the BusinessMirror. This piece was published on Jan. 27, 2012. Photo courtesy Myla Villanueva.)

Telcos invest P75M in tourism

SMART Communications Inc., and Globe Telecom Inc. are investing a total P75 million this year to support the various marketing campaigns of the Department of Tourism (DOT) to boost domestic travel and foreign tourist arrivals.

This developed as Tourism Secretary Alberto A. Lim told a press briefing on Monday that the Philippines was on track in attracting more tourists this year, with projected arrivals to exceed the 3.52 million in 2010.

He said the DOT has tied up with Smart for a P50-million domestic tourism campaign dubbed “Pilipinas, Tara Na.” Under the program, Smart and the DOT have jointly produced print and TV advertisements and billboards focusing on the country’s culture, history, ecotourism, nature and adventure.

“The growth of domestic tourism has been fantastic,” Lim said. Of the P912-billion gross income earned by the economy in 2009, for instance, he said, “P800 billion came from domestic tourism. So we want to give more emphasis to domestic tourism now than in the past.”

He said the budget air fares were possibly behind the jump in the number of domestic travelers, making travel possible for even the youth.

Under the “Pilipinas, Tara Na” campaign, Smart subscribers will also be able to text a number to get information to whichever tourist destination they are currently located at.

The DOT has also partnered with Globe for an international marketing campaign as part of the agency’s Pinoy Homecoming program this year. “This is an international promotion to bring back overseas Filipinos mostly from the US. Part of Globe’s budget is to give arriving tourists a goody bag that includes Globe SIM card, discount coupon and others,” Lim added.


Of its P25-million budget for the program, Globe will also be creating TV commercials that will air on The Filipino Channel “to promote the program to the overseas Filipinos, especially those from the US,” explained DOT Assistant Secretary Domingo Ramon C. Enerio III.

To boost this program, the DOT has requested President Aquino to sign a proclamation to declare 2011-16 as Pinoy Homecoming years. “This way, it will be a continuing program to encourage balikbayan from the US to come home and avail themselves of various discounts and promotions by hotels, restaurants, and other tourism establishments,” he added.

While the DOT has started marketing the program to Filipino-Americans, Enerio said the succeeding years will target Filipinos in Europe, the Middle East and Asia as well.

Lim also said the DOT has endorsed the tourism advocacy campaign of personal health-care company Johnson& Johnson called “Basta Pinas,” which was launched in March. “Their web site will feature conversations about tourism sites and getting the public to explore the Philippines with fresh perspectives.”

Meanwhile, Lim said visitor arrivals from January to April 2011 jumped a substantial 13.3 percent, to 1.31 million.

“By reaching this figure in the first four months of the year alone, our 3.74-million target for the year is well within reach. Our continuing efforts on the international front, especially in trade fairs abroad, will ensure that the target is met,” he said.

According to data from the DOT, tourists from Korea topped the arrivals at 286,018, up by 28.35 percent from the same period last year. They were followed by tourists from the United States at 229,200 visitors; Japan at 129,223; China 71,113; Australia, 56,681; Taiwan, 55,662; Canada, 44,978; Singapore, 42,680; Hong Kong 39,535; and United Kingdom, 36,980.

Tourists from Korea, the U.S., and Japan accounted for close to half of the arrivals in the four-month period.

(My piece was originally published in the BusinessMirror, May 31, 2011. Tourist arrivals data courtesy Dept. of Tourism.)

The Globe iPhone saga continues...

iPhone users complain of skyrocketing roaming charges

MANILA, Philippines - Mounting complaints on hefty roaming charges slapped on traveling wireless phone subscribers have triggered the National Telecommunication Commission to call the attention of local mobile phone companies.

NTC chief Gamaliel Cordoba said the complaints were directed mostly to Globe Telecom, which has inked a deal with Apple to carry iPhone among its list of handsets offered to subscribers.

Cordoba said he will ask the mobile phone companies to address this issue during a meeting on Thursday.

"There will be a meeting tomorrow (Thursday) with them. This needs to be addressed immediately because there were so many complaints from subscribers who brought their iPhones and iPad tablets with them abroad during the holiday season," said Cordoba. (Click ABS-CBN News for the rest.)

If you remember, this space broke the story of the complaining Globe subscribers as early as March 5, 2009. It's a little bit disconcerting that two years after, the issue has remained unresolved, and the NTC is only now tackling the problem. Check out more comments/complaints from subscribers in this March 10, 2009 update.

Top taxpayers in the Philippines 2009

Celebrities, businessmen among top taxpayers

MANILA, Philippines - Celebrities like Wilfredo "Willie" B. Revillame and businessmen like San Miguel Corp. top honcho Ramon S. Ang landed on the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) list of the biggest taxpayers for 2009, along with telecommunication giants Smart Communications, Inc. and Globe Telecom, Inc.

The lists of top 500 individual and top 500 corporate taxpayers have been published on the bureau’s Web site, in compliance with Section 71 of the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997 that states "the Commissioner may... publish a list containing the names and addresses of persons who have filed income tax returns," BIR Commissioner Kim S. Jacinto-Henares said in a phone interview Sunday. (The rest at ABS-CBN.)

FOR the public's convenience, here are the lists of the top 500 individual and corporate taxpayers in the Philippines, as per the Bureau of Internal Revenue:

Top 500 Individual and Corp. Taxpayers 2009

The customer is no longer right

Apparently, here in the Philippines, that is the norm. I mean how many times have you felt frustrated by how stores, restaurants or companies ride roughshod over customer complaints these days? (Maybe it's partly our fault. Many Filipinos know very little about their rights as consumers and think it is just a waste of time, and a nuisance to file complaints and follow them up.)

(Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala is now Globe's chief complaint dispatcher. Tsk, tsk.)

We're happy for Gerry Kaimo that he got his iPhone/Globe billing problem solved (see previous blog post). But he had to email Globe chairman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala (Jaza) just to get a satisfactory response because none of the telco's customer service people nor their bosses were willing to make the right decision about his problem! Doesn't Jaza have better things to do than attend to customer complaints? Why can't Globe just revamp its customer relations department to make the staff more people-oriented?

This inability to empathize with clients and customers' woes appears to be a growing trend among companies here. In a bid to make humongous profits, companies will sacrifice customer service. Many of them have grown insensitive to their customers' needs and issues. Most of the time, we are directed to a call center where agents will give you robotic answers as per the script given to them by the company they answer to.

If you remember, last month, my friend, businesswoman Ruby Gan, complained of the lousy treatment she received from Sony Ericsson after she bought a used/second-hand Xperia from one of its major dealers, Memo Xpress. By the time SE officials realized they could probably explain their case better to Ruby by just meeting w/ her personally, it took three weeks of back and forth unproductive emails, and my shoutout to another SE publicist. (Apparently SE's main PR gal Jingjing Romero couldn't even be bothered to use her free SE phone to call Ruby and get to the bottom of the issue. Last I heard, Ruby ditched the Xperia and is tossing it back to the company as soon as she gets her money back.)

(Beware of roaches!)
Another case of poor customer relations is Zest Airways. Remember Marge Polintan and her roach problem in Zest Air? She wrote emails to the airline customer service dept., its management, resort owners in Boracay who have tieups w/ the airline, and heads of government agencies. When a top dog in the airline finally decided to meet her and her group of disgruntled customers, three months had already passed! (This is funny considering I forwarded Marge's emailed complaint to one of the airline's VPs as soon as I read it. Tsk, tsk.)

According to Marge in her email to me last Feb. 28, the issue has been settled to her satisfaction. I'm glad. Her email below:

Dear Ms. Arnaldo:

If you recall, our experience with Zest Air was posted in your blog sometime ago. There was a relentless barrage of emails and letters I sent to them, the Boracay Chamber of Commerce and other agencies concerned.

Finally after three months, Ms. Jo Trinidad Customer Care of Zest Air finally contacted me and had lunch together with some of my co-passengers. She could not believe the stories we told her. Apparently, they have only one person handling all these complaints and the poor girl is simply overwhelmed.

I also had the chance to meet their CEO, Mr Salvador Ramirez. Zest Air is inviting the 15 passengers concerned to fly Zest Air again to any of their local destination and promised first class service. (Me: The airline CEO is actually Amb. Fred Yao of Zest-O. Ramirez is SVP for Commercial Affairs, and former president/CEO of TAIR Airways w/c was supposed to start flying from Clark to the Middle East in 2007. I don't think TAIR every lifted off.)

Thank you for all your help.

MARGE S. POLINTAN

One girl just handling customer complaints? That's what I call efficient!

I wish companies invest more in their customer service departments. These departments are the front-liners of their business and are also responsible for maintaining the company's image in public. No matter how much money a company pours into PR and advertising, its image will still suffer when clients are dissatisfied with how they are treated. Lousy customer service=lousy company.

Look, all that customers really need is an understanding person in the company, who can give us simple, direct, and reasonable answers to our plaints, as soon as possible. We just need a helping hand, that's all.

Update on iPhone/Globe billing issues

FOR those wondering what happened to Net activist Gerry Kaimo's complaint to Globe's Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala (Jaza) regarding his phone charges, I'm posting Gerry's email to our yahoogroup re: the resolution to the problem:

Hi Gang,

I brought my problem to the top, and got my problems solved the next day.

Also, I was given a tutorial for the blackberry i replaced the iPhone with. (Actually my GF won the BB in a raffle so I just sold the iPhone. She gave me a BlackBerry that cost nothing. It's a Curve model at that). What a relief.

Globe and I also agreed on an amount, not the P27,000 on my bill, far from it.

All's well that end well. But John (Silva) was right. Unless you bring it to the top, it is very difficult to get things moving.

In my case I felt that things could have been handled at a manager's level, but apparently a lot of phone calls around their network by their head honcho got my problem resolved. My faith in Globe restored, am enjoying the BB. It's easy to operate and can handle up to ten emails, though a caveat- remember that you will be paying for airtime for ten email accounts. I set mine to my *****@mac.com and will probably use that and that alone for my BB. I wonder when the time will come when things get settled at that level as it should but I think many people, even at a VP level, are afraid to "overplease" the customer (as if there was suck a thing) and opt to let clients hang out to dry rather than make a decision like giving the customer a rebate. Hopefully one day we shall get somewhere better in terms of customer service. Also, Globe has lost a few really good people like Gracie Khoe and Lance Agudo (head of customer service). And those were real customer oriented people.

As for those who still have the iPhone, congrats for being able to keep your bills down.

Gerry

For iPhone users/Globe subscribers

MY old friend Gerry Kaimo has been tearing his hair out over his Apple iPhone/Globe Telecom service because his phone bill had skyrocketed to P27,000 in just two months, all because of the default Internet settings.

I've checked the Philmug site and apparently this problem of overbilling by Globe has been happening since the phone was introduced last year. So if you're still thinking of buying such a unit, please be warned. Globe's customer relations system isn't exactly the most efficient in the industry, so you may want to ask a lot of questions about your unit first and Globe's charges before making that final purchase. It also helps to make friends w/ the techie guys. (The Philmug site does have suggested procedures to adjust your Internet setttings and thus protect yourself from getting overbilled. So check that out, too.)

Let's hear it from Gerry:

To all of you out there who may have bought the Mac iPhone. Please consult your nearest Globe Tech Support. There is no manual, so it's a guessing game mostly. I was at Globe Towers today and found out that I was not the only one who had a problem with this Mac iPhone.

My month's first bill came up to a whopping P15,000+. Second month seventeen I think. Basta the total was P27,000 FOR TWO MONTHS!! It was because of the settings. You all know that this iPhone lacks a manual. Mac does not give out manuals. You have to source a third party manual to learn about your Apple product. Thing is, Globe COULD HAVE given their buyers lessons, even if they had to charge them for it. Consider this: If you had a choice between paying a thousand peso seminar fee to save tens of thousands, that's still a good deal.

Thing is, they knowingly sold a phone with no manual and NOT ENOUGH techies to help the customers who paid almost forty thousand pesos for the iPhone. What happened to me also happened, according to a Globe employee who shall remain unknown because they could fire him for being honest to me. At any rate, I was told that my fifteen thousand and then seventeen thousand bills were NOTHING compared to the other customers who ran up bills of 37,000-forty thousand peso monthly bills. They should have warned us. They COULD at least have warned us. But no, it is apparently more important that Globe sell tons of iPhones before more people learn that if you are not INFORMED (caveat emptor, remember?) before people find out that they will be paying thousands more than their usual bills.

FOUL by GLOBE. A deed MOST FOUL. A warning that if you don't set the phone right, you can end up paying thousands monthly. I wonder what Globe will do to let me have it. I wonder if they will... After all, messengers are apt to get punished in this country, just ask Jun Lozada. But no matter. Do what you must. But hey, do the right thing and call your iPhone buyers. And please stop telling your tech support people to encourage your customers to switch their plans from per kilobyte to 5 PESOS FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES. because the fifteen minutes keeps going and going and going. FOUL PLAY by GLOBE, in my opinion, they should clarify. CLARIFY and inform your customers of what may may ahead of them.

That's all from me. Globe's turn. If you had the same problem, please pass this on. Help the others who may just now be getting the shaft. Thanks.

Last I heard from Gerry, he has written Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, chairman of Globe Telecom, about this issue. I hope Gerry gets an answer soon.